FX.co ★ UK government cuts stake in Lloyds

On Monday, Lloyds Banking Group said the UK government sold its shares in the bank, thus cutting its shareholding in Lloyds to 1.97% of its issued share capital.

The price of the sale was not disclosed. It is only known that the money from the share sale will go for lowering Britain’s national debt.

Lloyds’ press release reads that the UK government now owns 1.41 billion shares in the bank compared with 2.1 billion shares previously.

The government has spent £20.3 billion rescuing Lloyds during the financial crisis. Overall, it managed to recover more than £20 billion through the sale of shares and dividends paid.

Commenting on the sale, Simon Kirby, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said that he is pleased that the group is close to completing its journey back to full private ownership.

“We have now recovered over £20 billion for the taxpayer and are very close to recovering all of the money taxpayers injected into the bank,” he added.

In 2016, Britain’s largest retail bank reported £2.51 billion in net profits with total income of £17.5 billion. In February, Lloyds announced it would pay an ordinary dividend of 2.55 pence per share for the last year and a special dividend of 0.5 pence.